Doyle Brunson

This is the man whose name is synonymous with poker, The Godfather of Poker himself, the great Doyle Brunson. Doyle Brunson has been playing poker professionally since the 1950's by traveling throughout his home state of Texas looking for any and all poker games that were running. This is how Doyle earned his nickname of, “The Texas Road Gambler”. Dolly, as his peers often call him, has pretty much done it all when it comes to poker. He has won the Main Event of the World Series of Poker (twice), has won WPT titles, has authored many great poker books, has his own online poker room as is in the Poker Hall of Fame. Doyle Brunson is the man that all professional poker players look up to, respect and in a sense, worship for the way he grew up playing poker on the road.
While many current professional poker players did not even start playing poker until many decades after Doyle, Texas Dolly started playing poker when it was looked down upon and games were difficult to find.

When Doyle Brunson decided to start playing poker as a career, he and a group of friends (including the famous, Amarillo Slim) travelled through Texas looking for poker games. They lived life on the road, gambling on sports, pool, poker and almost anything a person could think of. Doyle finally decided to move to Las Vegas where the games were much easier to find and great success followed. Doyle Brunson became the first person ever to win the World Series of Poker No Limit Hold Em Championship event in 2 consecutive years. He won the first title in 1976 for $230k and then in 1977 for $340k. He also won 2 other events in 1977, in the $5k buy in 2-7 Lowball tournament for $80k and the Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo event for $63k, which had a $1k buy in.

And his success did not stop there. Doyle went on to win 6 more bracelets. In 1978 he won a $5k buy in Seven card stud event for $68k, a $600 buy in Mixed Doubles event in 1979 for $5k, a $2.5k buy in No Limit Hold Em event in 1991 for $208k, a $1.5k Razz event in 1998 for $93k, a $2k HORSE event in 2003 for $84k and his latest bracelet, a $5k buy in No Limit Hold Em 6-Max event in 2005 for $368k. All together, he has won 10 bracelets all time, which ties him for second place all time. He is tied with Johnny Chan who also has 10 bracelets and both trail Phil Hellmuth, who sits at the top with 11.

One of the things Doyle is most famous for is his famous poker book named, “Super System: A Course in Power Poker”. This book came out in the 1970's and is still in considered to be one of the most influential poker books of all time. The book was then updated in 2004 with the release of Super System 2. Besides that book, Doyle has written 4 other great poker books: “According to Doyle” released in '07, Doyle's “50 Most Memorable Hands” also released in '07, “Poker Wisdom of a Champion” from 2003 and finally “Online Poker: The Guide to Playing Online Poker Safely and Winning Money” from '05. All of these books are highly recognized in the poker book industry and have been read by all serious poker players. In addition to all these accomplishments, Texas Dolly has also started his own online poker site, named “Doyle's Room” which is regarded as on the the top online poker rooms in the United States.